Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
Issue link: http://www.epageflip.net/i/1045613
WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM OCTOBER 31-NOVEMBER 6, 2018 UCW 5 MARGARET DICKSON, Columnist. COMMENTS? Editor@upandcomin- gweekly.com. 910-484-6200. News deserts are a fact of life by MARGARET DICKSON It is no exaggeration to say that our great American free press in all its various forms is under siege. Our own president calls the Fourth Estate "the enemy of the people" and demeans its work as "fake news." But the great- est threat to our oldest and most tra- ditional medium, the American news- paper, comes not from Donald Trump but from technological developments and proliferation of niche media, including social media. e American newspaper that was our watchdog during the founding of our nation, the Civil War, the Great Depression and great social upheavals into the 21st century faces severe diminishment if not outright extinction. Into the early years of this century, the newspaper on our kitchen table told us a bit of everything about the world around us – hard news, sports, trends in living, who had died – and gave us the crossword puzzle. Its core mission, as our nation's founders understood and supported, was to be a check on governments at all levels, but it strove to be the total package. As technology exploded in this cen- tury, though, bringing us cable and satellite television, the internet and smart phones – all of which operate in the moment 24/7 – newspapers could not keep up. row in the Great Recession and the future got even shakier and scarier. Consider these facts from a study just released by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Media and Journalism. More than one in five newspapers has folded its tents since 2000. Newspapers that remain are sometimes called "ghost papers" because they are now ghosts of their former selves. Dramatic drops in advertising revenue mean greatly pared-down staffs unable to provide the news coverage they once offered to local communities – city council and county commission meetings, school board happenings and local spot news. What is more, over half of our nation's news- papers have changed hands in the last decade, often moving from locally owned and operated businesses to newspapers chains, owned and headquartered elsewhere, accountable to shareholders, not local communities. As the UNC-CH study puts it, "the people with the least access to local news are often the most vulnerable – the poorest, least educated and most isolated." e Fayetteville Observer, North Carolina's oldest continually published daily newspaper and owned and operated by a local family for almost a century, was sold in 2016 to a newspaper chain headquar- tered in New York with a stable of 144 daily papers, according to its website. Up & Coming Weekly remains a locally owned and operated community newspaper distinguished by its community engage- ment rather than a commitment to news content. Several weeks ago, I sat in on two focus groups, one composed of Democrats and the other of Republicans, talking about various political topics. Everyone in each group was conversant on and shared opinions about national politicians and national issues, but almost no one in either camp had any idea who represented them in the North Carolina General Assembly nor what the legislature has been up to in recent years. Most had a vague sense that Gov. Cooper was focused on hurricane recovery, but that was about it for state concerns. In a word, both groups were clueless about state issues and state candidates. All sorts of entities, many of them digital, are working to fill the void left by the dramatic shrinkage of Ameri- can newspapers, but most of these are in major metropolitan areas, leaving the hinterlands to become what are increasingly known as "news deserts." e cold, hard reality, though, is that no fixes are on the horizon, which leaves us, the American people and voters, on our own to find out what our govern- ments, especially at the state and local levels, are doing. It also gives both elected officials and bureaucrats much more rein to do whatever they want to do with very little public scrutiny. No matter how one feels about "the media," we should all understand that a free and available press is fundamental to the operation of our democracy. As the UNC-CH study authors put it, "We need to make sure that whatever replaces the 20th century version of local newspa- pers serves the same community-building functions. If we can figure out how to craft and implement sustainable news business models in our smallest, poorest markets, we can then empower journalis- tic entrepreneurs to revive and restore trust in the media from the grassroots level up, in whatever form – print, broadcast or digital." You can learn more about this national problem at www.usnewsdeserts.com. OPINION one year special $ 15 for UP & CoMING WEEKLY rEadErs oNLY you save 89% off Tv GuIDe MaGaZINe Get A GreAt DeAL from tV GuiDe mAGAzine start Your subscription online, By Mail or Call online: tvguidemagazine.com/newsoffer mail: complete order form below call: 1-800-365-1940 WHeN CaLLING use PRoMo: K6fNsWPZZ Every issue delivers inside scoop on your favorite shows Breaking news keeps you in the know Highlights help guide you to what's worth watching Your favorite stars take you behind the scenes 28 Pages of easy-to-use primetime listings GrEaT rEasoNs To sTarT YoUr sUBsCrIPTIoN All sorts of entities, many of them digital, are working to fill the void left by the dramatic shrinkage of American newspapers, but most of these are in major metropolitan areas, leaving the hinterlands to become what are increasingly known as "news deserts."